Nostr notes by Aras Pranckevičius

:blender: 5.3 just entered beta. Among other things (gaussian ...

2026-10-09T18:40:27Z

:blender: 5.3 just entered beta. Among other things (gaussian splatting, dispersion, NPR lighting nodes, DLSS, etc.), the video sequence editor got quite some stuff! Ripple editing, new blade tool, scene strip thumbnails, OpenTimelineIO, hardware video decoding, etc. Details: https://developer.blender.org/docs/release_notes/5.3/sequencer/ and daily builds: https://builder.blender.org/download/daily/ #blender

Oh lollums! Now I'm getting emails for offers of $150-$300/hr ...

2026-09-28T12:45:32Z

Oh lollums! Now I'm getting emails for offers of $150-$300/hr jobs just to sit and human-review AI-made PRs to random github projects. Depending on where you are in the world, that can be "geez, nice!" money, wtf. Looks like someone's really keen on getting more human training data, eh.

Madness.

Once again, we support volumetric dog _and_ volumetric fog at the ...

2026-09-22T10:49:09Z

Once again, we support volumetric dog _and_ volumetric fog at the same time!

And with that, off to #bcon26 :blender:

Petition to start pronouncing “LLM” as “lollum” (similar ...

2026-09-20T11:59:41Z

Petition to start pronouncing “LLM” as “lollum” (similar to Gollum)

Accidentally a zucchini ...

2026-09-15T08:04:20Z

Accidentally a zucchini

No-Face has seen things ...

2026-09-14T03:55:44Z

No-Face has seen things

no ragrets!

2026-09-11T15:19:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…j35u
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no ragrets!

turns out, our parents way back “why you sit at the computer ...

2026-09-10T17:09:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…4xqm
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turns out, our parents way back “why you sit at the computer all the time? should learn some real job” were right all along, eh

So! There are AI agents registering themselves to this mastodon ...

2026-09-10T11:49:27Z

So! There are AI agents registering themselves to this mastodon instance (some of them are upfront that they are automated AI agents). But! If you reject their application, after a while they autonomously write an email to the admin (=me), asking for why I have not allowed them in yet. And if I don't want to, the robots would like to know, and demand an explanation why.

I have not responded (yet?).

What a strange world.

Saw Linux out there on the streets ...

2026-09-03T06:02:08Z

Saw Linux out there on the streets

wait, you at Sony are all still on PS1 CPUs without hardware ...

2026-09-02T14:52:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…h0t0
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wait, you at Sony are all still on PS1 CPUs without hardware floating point puns?!

yes this is getting so bad I want to scream “ieee!”

2026-09-02T14:30:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…wvk4
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yes this is getting so bad I want to scream “ieee!”

whatever floats our boats

2026-09-02T14:20:45Z

In reply to nevent1q…w9tn
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whatever floats our boats

remainders to be seen

2026-09-02T11:26:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…c3f8
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remainders to be seen

that is not entirely wrong

2026-09-02T09:52:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…jhel
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that is not entirely wrong

Shockwave! Geez, we are all old, aren't we :)

2026-08-26T08:40:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…rhk3
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Shockwave! Geez, we are all old, aren't we :)

holy shit this is good. and excellent music choice!

2026-08-25T19:11:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…83sm
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holy shit this is good. and excellent music choice!

for gen-z, maybe. for gen-2 it is just fine.

2026-08-17T14:01:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…2rt3
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for gen-z, maybe. for gen-2 it is just fine.

do you have any linqs where that is explained?

2026-08-17T06:27:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…whmg
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do you have any linqs where that is explained?

What music instrument C# engineers like to play the most? ...

2026-08-16T16:23:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…djuu
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What music instrument C# engineers like to play the most? CLRinet.

"GPU texture address mode collies" meme continues to be ...

2026-08-10T07:43:06Z

"GPU texture address mode collies" meme continues to be my main achievement in life, I think.

Someone else pointed at this: for all the "massive testing, ...

2026-07-07T09:36:45Z

Someone else pointed at this: for all the "massive testing, production-ready, blah blop" talk that Unity does, they also ship pieces of code like this. This is from Unity IAP package, new stable version (5.4.0) shipped last week. Count the number of opening & closing curly braces :)

So! The new version control system from Epic (Lore) is ...

2026-06-18T04:08:13Z

So! The new version control system from Epic (Lore) is interesting https://lore.org/

Everyone in mid/large games uses Perforce, and while it is ancient and not ideal, it works at these data sizes and needed feature sets.

There have been attempts at displacing Perforce however! E.g. there's Ark VCS (https://ark-vcs.com/), Diversion (https://www.diversion.dev/) and Unity Version Control (née Plastic SCM).

they are all a bit patchy, tbh

2026-06-14T06:41:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…sd56
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they are all a bit patchy, tbh

thanks ryg! you are a ray of light

2026-06-14T06:25:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…mvx5
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thanks ryg! you are a ray of light

not my area of expertise

2026-06-14T04:57:57Z

In reply to nevent1q…pcpz
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not my area of expertise

a bit pointless comment tbh

2026-06-13T17:25:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…zel9
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a bit pointless comment tbh

RE: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@RYStorm/116743570203709579 ...

2026-06-13T16:34:06Z

RE: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@RYStorm/116743570203709579

Everyday life is full of dimensional sayings!
- you are making a point
- we are ahead of the curve
- scratching the surface
- this speaks volumes
- tastes just like a hypercube

quoting
note1qp9…geuv

We have heard enough of "Let's park that discussion" and "Let's circle back to that", let's bring in some new phrases like "That's not very 4 dimensional of you." and "We're sharpening the tip of the cone."

Unity's take on "we have Roblox at home" will be ...

2026-05-22T14:27:55Z

Unity's take on "we have Roblox at home" will be shutting down. https://struckdunity.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/48437385778580-An-Update-on-Struckd

"Wait, Unity had a Roblox-like thing?!". Indeed it had -- it was called Struckd. Unity acquired the company back in 2021, and yeah, I would have now known about this if I had not been at Unity in 2021.

One could say this attempt did not quite struckd the world by storm.

Nostr event nevent1qqs9588ytcrf702wp68r9dvwvseuvne9j85h75rngw04pjf5d0y0d3gzyze0q7c7fyx26n6g3krfe6cmyqnkf94a72jacgxf3pm822m0nuzhq3e7zy7

2026-05-20T03:57:12Z

0x2D today! Still quite a bit to go until 3D.

welcome back!

2026-05-04T19:16:45Z

In reply to nevent1q…qtp8
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welcome back!

Happy to report that the wireframe teapot still works! ...

2026-05-02T06:07:38Z

Happy to report that the wireframe teapot still works!

yep, https://youtu.be/0Zfsn82MF3E?is=5ycPdjzWpUF8aiJ-

2026-04-04T13:49:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…6m0t
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yep, https://youtu.be/0Zfsn82MF3E?is=5ycPdjzWpUF8aiJ-

My first reaction to DLSS5 can be summarized as “🤮”. So ...

2026-03-16T19:58:00Z

My first reaction to DLSS5 can be summarized as “🤮”. So now this completely discards artistic intent, and replaces all game characters with fake instagram influencers?

Is it just me?

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/dlss5-breakthrough-in-visual-fidelity-for-games/

so now that you know everything, can you confirm that PS6 is ...

2026-01-15T19:56:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…r3mw
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so now that you know everything, can you confirm that PS6 is going to be 768 PICO-8s duct taped together?

Teapot wireframe: ON Snow effect: ON ...

2026-01-13T15:46:58Z

Teapot wireframe: ON
Snow effect: ON

what, this time it is not EdgeGeom on SPUs?!?! Anyway, congrats! ...

2026-01-06T04:43:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…jqtv
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what, this time it is not EdgeGeom on SPUs?!?! Anyway, congrats! (And oof for Unity…)

I'd think that "I'm generating machine code ...

2025-12-21T12:21:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…s8j7
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I'd think that "I'm generating machine code directly" is kinda the opposite of "portable" already to begin with :)

why it would not work? You have to write into executable memory, ...

2025-12-21T10:37:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…k7n8
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why it would not work? You have to write into executable memory, but that’s about it.

related to your masm on 64 bit woes; I recall a similar case ...

2025-12-21T09:40:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…p49n
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related to your masm on 64 bit woes; I recall a similar case where just generating (very small amount of) machine code directly was easier than trying to get assemblers to work. Something like:

so that was an introduction alright. How many topics you had ...

2025-12-21T07:14:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…k0rr
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so that was an introduction alright. How many topics you had drafted after the intro? :P

So! This mastodon instance (mastodon.gamedev.place) has 136 ...

2025-12-02T08:34:07Z

So! This mastodon instance (mastodon.gamedev.place) has 136 custom "emojis" representing various engines & tools often used in gamedev. I made all of them 2+ years ago. Which notable ones have popped up since then that we are missing out on? Here are all the current ones: https://github.com/aras-p/gamedev-emojis

"Reflections on My Tech Career" from Bruce Dawson is ...

2025-11-12T04:49:17Z

"Reflections on My Tech Career" from Bruce Dawson is great, in two parts: https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/10/22/reflections-on-my-tech-career-part-1/ and https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/11/10/reflections-on-my-tech-career-part-2/

ohh... I run at 150% display scale on windows... so you're ...

2025-10-20T10:41:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…gfrz
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ohh... I run at 150% display scale on windows... so you're saying that's generally still an unsolved problem in Linux land? o_O

So... given that Win10 support is EOL, and I kinda want to avoid ...

2025-10-20T08:19:22Z

So... given that Win10 support is EOL, and I kinda want to avoid Win11... What's the take on Linux these days? I mostly use computer for C++ development: Visual Studio, Fork, Superluminal. What's the least amount of hassle? GPU is nvidia.

Oh, so these AI slopbros are explicitly training on GPL code PRs, ...

2025-10-17T03:55:17Z

Oh, so these AI slopbros are explicitly training on GPL code PRs, cool cool. The email asks for what I do think about this offer. Hmm.

New thing from the Zstd (and LZ4/xxhash) crowd: OpenZL. A dozen ...

2025-10-07T07:48:12Z

New thing from the Zstd (and LZ4/xxhash) crowd: OpenZL. A dozen or so building blocks (shufflers, transposers, filters, compressors) that can be chained together. Can automatically build "best" config based on sample data; same decompressor can decompress any config. Nice! https://openzl.org/ (and whitepaper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03203) #compression #openzl

I… I just assembled a poster for an Epic Games service. That ...

2025-09-16T15:37:21Z

I… I just assembled a poster for an Epic Games service. That was not on my bingo card! #bcon25

nice release, congrats!

2025-09-16T04:10:17Z

In reply to nevent1q…98yf
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nice release, congrats!

the winning move is to turn off slack and never turn it on again!

2025-07-23T03:39:31Z

In reply to nevent1q…2564
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the winning move is to turn off slack and never turn it on again!

“jemalloc Postmortem” ...

2025-06-13T03:59:02Z

“jemalloc Postmortem” https://jasone.github.io/2025/06/12/jemalloc-postmortem/

Apple WWDC is happening, so: 20 years ago at WWDC Unity 1.0 has ...

2025-06-10T03:39:49Z

Apple WWDC is happening, so: 20 years ago at WWDC Unity 1.0 has launched. I think it did have a massive effect of the whole game development! Also, 20 years in games tech is a really long time. #unity :unity:

Skribidi - "Nimble bidirectional text stack for UIs" by ...

2025-06-05T10:01:19Z

Skribidi - "Nimble bidirectional text stack for UIs" by Mikko Mononen (npub1rx7…v92v) looks very cool. https://github.com/memononen/Skribidi

thank you!

2025-05-22T11:12:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…rcps
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thank you!

Here’s me shocked at sudden year increase, and Ren trying to ...

2025-05-20T19:08:17Z

In reply to nevent1q…eyew
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Here’s me shocked at sudden year increase, and Ren trying to calm me down

Nostr event nevent1qqs9n6zr57rygmy7krqgj9x3sk5ajnz05206np3jk2qha53hamjdzqgzyze0q7c7fyx26n6g3krfe6cmyqnkf94a72jacgxf3pm822m0nuzhqxkd2cc

2025-05-20T13:15:53Z

So one thing led to another, and I turned 44, AMA

Teapot vs Tulips ...

2025-04-30T19:45:01Z

Teapot vs Tulips

"Senior Engineer tries Vibe Coding" is excellent. ...

2025-04-09T04:13:57Z

"Senior Engineer tries Vibe Coding" is excellent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2C2CNmK7dQ

out of interest (have deleted my LI some years ago), is that ...

2025-03-28T15:51:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…h2ws
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out of interest (have deleted my LI some years ago), is that still happening? I know job requirements used to speak of ninjas and rockstars umpteen years ago, I had assumed that fad is over by now…

now now, there’s no need to insult actual rockstars like this!

2025-03-28T15:45:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…8u4u
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now now, there’s no need to insult actual rockstars like this!

Ok, time for some reflection ...

2025-03-22T19:50:27Z

Ok, time for some reflection

“Please stop externalizing your costs directly into my face” ...

2025-03-19T04:42:34Z

“Please stop externalizing your costs directly into my face” https://drewdevault.com/2025/03/17/2025-03-17-Stop-externalizing-your-costs-on-me.html

great video, thanks ❤️ This answer to "do you think AI ...

2025-01-04T18:53:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…rsyf
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great video, thanks ❤️ This answer to "do you think AI will ever be able to write a good song?" question by Nick Cave -- way back from 2019! -- I often think about. https://www.theredhandfiles.com/considering-human-imagination-the-last-piece-of-wilderness-do-you-think-ai-will-ever-be-able-to-write-a-good-song/

There's also his later (2023) answer about ChatGPT writing lyrics: https://www.theredhandfiles.com/chatgpt-making-things-faster-and-easier/

RenderDoc :renderdoc: 1.36 is out, and while it contains DXIL ...

2024-12-20T17:56:06Z

RenderDoc :renderdoc: 1.36 is out, and while it contains DXIL debugging, raytracing capture and other magic things... it also now can load and display tiled & mipmapped EXR files! For the, I dunno, three of us who use :renderdoc: as an EXR viewer :) https://github.com/baldurk/renderdoc/releases/tag/v1.36

Oh, turns out this :mastodon: instance (mastodon.gamedev.place) ...

2024-12-17T19:16:30Z

Oh, turns out this :mastodon: instance (mastodon.gamedev.place) has been running for 7 years already. Not a terribly bad result! Here's what I wrote about it at the very start: https://aras-p.info/blog/2017/12/04/Gamedev-Mastodon-mastodon.gamedev.place/

"Mission: Importable - Ghost of Tsushima PC Postmortem" ...

2024-12-06T12:42:27Z

"Mission: Importable - Ghost of Tsushima PC Postmortem" is good. Iteresting to see that the very 1st step is getting debug markers correct, so you can look at frame structure in RenderDoc :renderdoc: (without RenderDoc large parts of PC gfx dev would fall sideways...). Would have not expected "emulate PS API on D3D12" to work as well as it did for them, good job! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tostM4-rK6o #GPC2024

it’s not a leak, it is revealing design thinking! Please ...

2024-11-24T07:22:16Z

In reply to nevent1q…p7a7
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it’s not a leak, it is revealing design thinking! Please “leak” more! ;)

like, even the whole asset dependencies concept I feel like is ...

2024-11-22T12:57:31Z

In reply to nevent1q…9rwd
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like, even the whole asset dependencies concept I feel like is not known about widely enough

oh wow, that is pretty cool! I’m wondering how many of “yeah ...

2024-11-22T12:56:35Z

In reply to nevent1q…35w5
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oh wow, that is pretty cool! I’m wondering how many of “yeah this is actually possible” workflows are possible, just Unity does not clearly tell people about them

In the middle of #bcon24, Cycles team is reviewing pull requests ...

2024-10-24T11:51:55Z

In the middle of #bcon24, Cycles team is reviewing pull requests with integrals and formulas and stuff. As one does.

This is one of "all the apps automagically update ...

2024-10-02T04:02:31Z

In reply to nevent1q…pfz2
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This is one of "all the apps automagically update themselves" reality downsides: it used to be that software you have stays the same, on the same computer. Now, computer stays the same, but software (slowly but surely) gets slower. Needs more memory, no longer acceptably works on non-SSD, etc. etc.

Was trying to figure out why laptop of mother-in-law was very ...

2024-10-02T04:00:46Z

Was trying to figure out why laptop of mother-in-law was very slow. It is 7 years old, 4GB RAM, HDD, so yeah. But it used to be not slow! Constant updates of both Windows and Chrome make everything sluggish. Even bringing up task manager takes half a minute. *One* app there that is still snappy? Picasa. Because it was discontinued before the laptop was made, so it had *zero* updates that would make it slower.

you mean they also did a groundbreaking discovery that computers ...

2024-09-21T05:03:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…xy3v
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you mean they also did a groundbreaking discovery that computers can display more than six colors?! or — gasp — vary the color a bit across a rectangle on screen?! what a time to be alive!

Whoa. D3D is switching to SPIR-V as shader bytecode format! This ...

2024-09-19T18:51:29Z

Whoa. D3D is switching to SPIR-V as shader bytecode format! This is excellent, and I guess lets them move away from their llvm 3.7 fork easier. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/directx-adopting-spir-v/

How it started / how it is going. Never been to Utah, but the ...

2024-09-15T14:54:54Z

How it started / how it is going. Never been to Utah, but the wireframe teapot is now here! Dog for scale.

And no mastodon/"fediverse" is not a sustainable and ...

2024-09-10T04:00:47Z

In reply to nevent1q…x9ln
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And no mastodon/"fediverse" is not a sustainable and scalable answer. You still need someone to run the servers (costs $$$) and do moderation (costs human work and sometimes human misery).

Like, this instance running at all is a combination of Someone paying a $700 bill each.and.every.month, and about 5 moderators looking at reports and user registrations each.and.every.day. *So far* this has been working. Will it keep on working? Who knows! Forever? Probably not :/

Cohost shutting down ...

2024-09-10T03:59:20Z

Cohost shutting down (https://cohost.org/staff/post/7611443-cohost-to-shut-down) is sad but not surprising. Unfortunately.

People saying "I wish media was not like today! I'd gladly pay $N for a nice no-nonsense / no-ads social platform". And then they don't.

Monica Harrington's story on early days of Valve & ...

2024-09-08T18:02:04Z

Monica Harrington's story on early days of Valve & Half-Life is a good read! https://medium.com/@monicah428/the-early-days-of-valve-from-a-woman-inside-bf80c6b47961

"No CPU, no GPU, no memory" demo category is cool! You ...

2024-09-07T11:55:48Z

"No CPU, no GPU, no memory" demo category is cool! You actually make an ASIC that outputs a VGA signal. My friend ReJ just made one. "The Drop", 3.5k logic gates, displays pictures and plays muzak. Submitted to Tiny Tapeout. Source: https://github.com/rejunity/tt08-vga-drop

I don't know, and that's why I'm a code monkey and ...

2024-08-21T07:18:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…cclu
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I don't know, and that's why I'm a code monkey and not some biz guy :) But yes a good question. And it is entirely possible that Unity without VC would not exist at all today.

Heck, I think Unity without JR becoming CEO back then would probably not exist today. There was *a lot* of internal power fighting among C suite and everything was a mess for about a year before JR became CEO.

Also, maybe having multiple visions at once, which are ...

2024-08-21T07:10:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…wf4h
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Also, maybe having multiple visions at once, which are conflicting with each other, is also not great. And trying to solve multiple visions by "let's hire everyone!" just means all the usual growth pains, plus an unsustainable business due to massive burn rate. Unity "the engine" was close to 1500 people at one point, ffs.

I wrote some random thoughts about Unity ...

2024-08-21T05:15:25Z

I wrote some random thoughts about Unity https://aras-p.info/blog/2024/08/11/Random-thoughts-about-Unity/